16/11/2024, 15:32 America’s Last Chance With the Global South: In an Age of Great-Power Competition, Washington Needs the

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America’s Last Chance With the Global

South
In an Age of Great-Power Competition, Washington Needs the
G-20
By Leslie Vinjamuri and Max Yoeli November 15, 2024

At the G-20 summit in Brasília, October 2024

Adriano Machado / Reuters

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T he United States is failing in the global South. Its popularity and influence have
waned, and policies that recent U.S. administrations have designed to close the gap
have fallen short. Allegations of hypocrisy that countries in the global South now
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make—centered on the claim that the United States has supported Ukraine but has been
complicit in mass death and suffering in Gaza and Lebanon—reflect historic skepticism
that Washington’s advocacy for international norms reflects a commitment to humanitarian
principles rather than self-interest, and a growing perception that developing countries bear
the cost of uneven U.S. leadership. The disproportionate struggle that many global South
countries faced in recovering economically from the COVID-19 pandemic only added to
their disappointment with advanced economies’ so-called vaccine nationalism. The United
States’ rejection of free trade has shrunk sought-after market access opportunities, while
new industrial policies raise fresh hurdles. As a result, despite making significant strides in
its economic and strategic engagement with the global South, the United States faces a
trust deficit.

Countries in the global South have attempted to press the United States for better
engagement in multilateral forums. But addressing the trust deficit through these postwar
institutions has not been effective, because they have become part of the problem. They
have failed to adapt to a new distribution of power, fueling charges of hypocrisy and
breeding competitive multilateralism. Antagonistic alternatives—from the expanded
BRICS to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—are vying for influence. American and
Western leadership are not the only games in town, and more than ever, the United States
must earn its partnerships with rising powers such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election has further raised the stakes. He
has vowed to pursue a more unilateral, “America first” foreign policy, championing
aggressive economic policies that will buffet emerging markets, antagonizing allies, partners,
and adversaries alike, and threatening mass deportations while inveighing against
immigrants with dehumanizing language. But Trump will not be able to ignore the global
South’s collective demands. The markets and materials that these countries possess will only
become more central to solving problems that the incoming president expresses great
interest in addressing, such as bolstering U.S. supply chains and securing critical minerals.
For the rest of the world, the participation of the global South is increasingly crucial to
tackling challenges that Trump tries to ignore, such as climate change and global health
crises.

Stay informed.
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The Trump administration’s success, and the success of administrations that follow, will
depend on crafting a strategy that offers genuine partnerships and mutually beneficial
opportunities—one that does not reduce the rest of the world to a playing field for
countering China’s influence. If Trump keeps up his inflammatory rhetoric and pursues
divisive policies, he may only spur more efforts by global South countries and emerging
institutions to hedge against the United States in ways that damage U.S. interests.

If his administration can temper its approach, however, it will find a golden opportunity to
reap many benefits. In 2026, the United States will assume the G-20 presidency (over
China’s objections). This will provide Washington with a unique platform to start rectifying
its relationship with the global South: as a multilateral forum that includes the most
influential developing countries, the G-20 is becoming an ever more powerful vehicle for
brokering deals, advancing shared agendas, and positioning the United States as a problem
solver on thorny challenges such as sustainable development, the reform of multilateral
institutions, digital connectivity, and energy cooperation. The United States simply cannot
afford to botch its G-20 presidency. Its competitiveness, prosperity, and security depend on
it.

CENTER STAGE

The G-20 offers a compelling stage for renewed U.S. leadership. Spanning six continents
and representing nearly 80 percent of global GDP, the forum includes today’s most
powerful states—U.S. partners and allies, as well as adversaries—and has the potential to
drive momentum for establishing standards and norms regarding cooperation on global
public goods. Although the G-7 remains an important forum for facilitating international
cooperation, it now excludes too many vital partners to anchor an inclusive U.S. global
governance strategy. Its primacy has waned: its members’ share of global GDP has fallen by
a third since the end of the Cold War, even as G-20 members’ share has held steady. And
Trump’s second term threatens to undermine the smaller forum’s greatest strength: cohesion
around shared values.
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The United States has a strong history of leadership in the G-20. President Barack Obama,
along with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, made it a critical forum for
international economic coordination during the global financial crisis. But as the United
States prepares to chair the body once again, nearly two decades later, it faces a different
geopolitical landscape. Indeed, since the United States last headed the G-20, in 2008,
competition to lead the global South has exploded. States such as China, Brazil, and India
are casting themselves as new alternatives to bankrupt Western leadership. Other
multilateral institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS,
have grown in size and ambition, adopting measures to erode, circumvent, or compete with
existing Western-led structures, such as the BRICS’s New Development Bank and its
proposed digital currency.

Meanwhile, Americans today are less convinced that their tax dollars should be spent on
bolstering their country’s preeminence worldwide. Washington must therefore not only
offer a more attractive value proposition to its overseas partners. It must demonstrate at
home why developing a better strategy for engaging the global South matters.

KEEPING MOMENTUM

America’s G-20 presidency will follow an unprecedented stretch of presidencies that

advanced new priorities and propelled meaningful prospects for reform. Used wisely, a
state’s 12-month presidency can set the agenda on key global issues, shape international
norms, and spur collective action. Critics of the G-20 are quick to point out that its
members have competing and diverse national interests. But that is becoming its strength:
the G-20 has a comparative advantage in conferring legitimacy to collective action in an era
when many global South states feel that the G-7 is no longer fit for purpose and efforts to
reform the UN Security Council’s membership have hit a brick wall.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia’s 2022 presidency highlighted the need
for equitable recovery and emphasized issues related to global health and green and digital
transitions. Last year, India leveraged its presidency to advocate reforms in multilateral
institutions, calling for “bigger, better, and more effective” multilateral development banks
(MDBs) as well as measures to unleash $200 billion in new lending. Throughout its
presidency, India specifically sought to elevate the global South’s collective leadership
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abilities, emphasizing collaboration with Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa and
welcoming the African Union as a permanent G-20 member with U.S. President Joe
Biden’s support.

This year, Brazil has likewise prioritized MDB reform and other issues important to the
global South, such as sustainable development, poverty, hunger, inequality, and reforms in
global governance institutions, including at the United Nations. South Africa’s president,
Cyril Ramaphosa, has committed to pursuing similar goals during his country’s 2025
presidency, including reinvigorating multilateralism; reforming the global architecture for
governance, finance, and trade; and accelerating efforts to meet the UN’s sustainable
development targets.

The U.S. presidency in 2026 should follow these examples. It is no secret that Trump
distrusts multilateral forums, and his counterparts should not harbor any illusions that he
will abandon that worldview. But the United States must prepare for a successful G-20
presidency not despite but because of Trump’s aspirations for American prosperity and
security. In addition to representing some 88 percent of the world’s population and over 40
percent of global GDP, global South states provide fast-growing international markets and
strong geopolitical partnerships. India has emerged as a significant global power, displacing
the United Kingdom in 2022 as the world’s fifth-largest economy. Africa is home to 24 of
the world’s 25 fastest-growing countries, and Asian countries now represent the majority of
global GDP and some 60 percent of this year’s growth, much of it coming from emerging
economies.

WAKING UP

For the United States to gain the trust it needs to reap the benefits of enduring
relationships with these countries, it must foster a more robust and inclusive international
order with institutions that facilitate cooperation and provide more evenly distributed
benefits. The international order today looks far less liberal than it did even a decade ago,
and the consequences are falling on the most vulnerable populations. Climate catastrophes
and wars are displacing tens of millions of people, and the COVID pandemic brought the
first jump in global poverty in decades, increasing the number of people living in extreme
poverty by 23 million from 2019 to 2022.
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Global South countries crave a trustworthy partner. Their optimism that China can offer
good-faith partnerships has largely evaporated. Through a combination of coercion and
inducement, China has sought to simultaneously expand its geopolitical clout and mitigate
its domestic overcapacity challenges by expanding its engagement with the global South.
Eleven years after it initiated its Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing is still pursuing such
efforts abroad, although its priority avenues have shifted. In the first half of 2023, China
signed over 100 BRI-related agreements, together worth $43 billion—about a 20 percent
increase from the first half of 2022. Some global South countries still welcome Chinese
investment, but Beijing’s selective cooperation—as represented by its “wolf warrior”
diplomacy and its truculence in debt negotiations—has only heightened wariness of its
intentions and trustworthiness. At present, however, developing countries lack adequate
access to U.S. markets or viable alternatives to Chinese investment, so their choices are
limited.

U.S. policymakers have woken up to the need for action, but with mixed results. Most
recently, the Biden administration conducted a series of high-level visits to global South
nations, renewed the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, and invested in new formats to engage
partners, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and the nascent Atlantic Partnership,
which includes 42 countries from Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and the
Caribbean. It has also sought to mobilize capital to narrow the immense global
infrastructure gap—$15 trillion to provide basic infrastructure by 2040 and $64 trillion to
achieve net zero emissions by 2050—through mechanisms including the Partnership for
Global Infrastructure and Investment.

But U.S. policy has been unable to deliver adequate economic offers. Some would-be
partners are being hit hard by Washington’s embrace of industrial policy and its rejection of
traditional trade agreements. Although recent U.S. policies have featured bright spots, such
as technology diplomacy and novel agreements such as the Indo-Pacific Economic
Framework, the benefits of such policies have so far been limited, and partners continue to
lament the United States’ reluctance to make commitments to digital trade, including its
refusal to join 80 countries in signing an e-commerce deal negotiated this summer at the
World Trade Organization. The United States has also persistently limited its remaining
avenues for engagement to those focused on countering Russia or China. Stressing great-

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power rivalries may be a way to sell policies in Washington, but it cannot convince states
across the global South of the value of U.S. leadership.

MULTILATERAL TRUST

The absence of fresh economic offers from the United States, combined with Trump’s
promise of new tariffs, could more deeply alienate global South partners. During his first
term, however, Trump seemed to recognize, at least in part, the global South’s importance to
U.S. strategy. In 2019, his administration launched Prosper Africa, an initiative to increase
U.S. trade and investment with the continent. That same year, the administration partnered
with Australia and Japan on the Blue Dot Network, an effort to boost high-quality
infrastructure investment, but it was soon sidetracked by the pandemic.

The G-20 presidency offers a chance for the Trump administration to build on these
gestures. Drawing on the forum’s broad and varied composition, the administration can
leverage the G-20 as the anchor of a strategy to increase prosperity for the global South
and the United States alike by driving new investment, unleashing economic opportunity,
tackling big infrastructure projects, and leading the reform of ossified global institutions
rather than bashing them. Since the United States will be assuming the G-20 presidency
during Trump’s second year in office, it can offer a well-timed opportunity to demonstrate
progress on salient issues in the global South and leave ample time to follow through.

Engineering a global South strategy with the G-20 at its center starts with low-hanging
fruit: avoiding incendiary remarks and inflammatory policies that alienate would-be
partners. Steering clear of blanket tariffs, mass deportations, or invasions of friendly states is
a low bar but an important one. Trump’s appointments to date indicate that he may stick to
these plans, but given many foreign capitals’ low expectations of a Trump presidency, they
may welcome even modest efforts to rein in fringe voices in his camp.

Establishing a focused global South agenda in 2025 could ensure that by the time
Washington assumes the G-20 presidency, it will be able to not only signal its commitment
to developing countries but also show results. Trump relishes playing the dealmaker, and
during his first term, he often made major threats but settled for minor concessions. His
second term offers an opportunity to use economic statecraft more affirmatively to drive

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more effective outcomes. By embracing diplomacy, participating in reform, and unshackling

U.S. economic tools such as financing for development and exports, the next administration
and Congress could lay the groundwork for a global South strategy that gives U.S. interests
better access to new markets, while also driving forward high-impact projects and local
development prospects.

The United States cannot afford to botch its G-20 presidency.

An important first diplomatic step could be a high-profile visit to a global South country in
2025, following Biden’s planned visits to Peru, Brazil (for the G-20), and Angola. The
United States must also embrace diplomacy in international forums—not just the G-20,
but also the Quad and the Atlantic Partnership. Multilateral institutions will outlast
Trump’s presidency, and he could exert greater influence on their work by leading reform
efforts than by inveighing against them. Some Trump advisers, influenced by the Project
2025 transition blueprint, may advocate withdrawing from international financial
institutions, but doing so would be a historic error. Trump can help shape the direction of
those institutions as a leading shareholder, for example, by building a relationship with Ajay
Banga, the pragmatic businessman leading the World Bank. The expiration of Banga’s five-
year term in 2028 will offer Trump the option to renew his nomination and build on a
U.S.-led reform agenda. Although the Trump administration may not prioritize developing
novel tools and directing robust funding to speed the green transition, at the very least
Congress and the administration can fund existing U.S. commitments, send qualified
representatives to the MDBs, and play a good-faith role in improving their efficacy.

The most significant, inclusive body through which to pursue a broader set of multilateral
reforms is the G-20. The forum can take a leading role in reforming the MDBs, and the
Trump administration should start by implementing the recommendations of the
Independent Expert Group appointed under India’s G-20 presidency to scale up financing,
improve private capital mobilization, and enable transformational investments.

Many avenues for improving U.S. policy toward the global South await action in
Washington. Crucial tools, especially for galvanizing private capital, have remained
untapped in a historically unproductive Congress. The Trump administration’s priorities
should include reauthorizing the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and

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expanding its capacity. The reach of the U.S. Export-Import Bank would also improve with
reforms to raise its statutory default limit, exempt certain classes of loans, and to focus on
export value and job creation. Extending and updating the African Growth and
Opportunity Act, scheduled to expire in 2025, is another opportunity for engagement that
would provide duty-free access to the U.S. market for certain exports from over 30
countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These agencies and programs are not altruistic giveaways;
they are essential economic tools that undergird U.S. economic and national security and
help American businesses and workers.

At the same time, the United States must keep its earlier promises. This includes taking
further action toward targets set by the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and
Investment and helping ensure the success of its funded projects rather than rejecting them
because of their ties to the Biden administration. Another attractive outlet could be the
India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, a megaproject unveiled at last year’s G-20
summit but delayed by the war in Gaza. If revived after a cease-fire, this connectivity effort
could attract significant private investment in addition to advancing geopolitical goals.
Although they are clearly subordinate to urgent humanitarian imperatives, the economic
and political opportunities provided by the IMEC could offer yet another incentive to push
for a durable resolution to war in the Middle East and dovetail nicely with normalization
efforts.

SELLING THE G-20

If the Trump administration pursues the above agenda, the United States will be poised to
gain ground in the global South. But updating its international strategy is only half the
battle. Washington must persuade Americans that working with a wider group of potential
allies and partners is in the United States’ interest. India’s effort to build domestic support
for global leadership by mounting a G-20 road show—encouraging popular participation
by creating festival pavilions and scheduling lectures, meetings, and other events in dozens
of Indian cities—provides a useful model. The United States can channel and improve on
this effort by launching a nonpartisan publicity campaign grounded in the country’s
strengths and diversity—for instance, by holding a road show that visits both rural and
urban communities to make a targeted case for an effective G-20 presidency. Trump may be

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one of few salespeople who can sell the G-20’s potential to broad swaths of the United
States.

Trump should embrace such a campaign. The G-20’s immense purchasing power offers
opportunities for U.S. businesses and workers. From energy innovation to agricultural
technology and exports, the U.S. economy stands to gain from the power that the G-20
wields to focus priorities and encourage investment on a global scale. Safeguarding the
United States’ supply of crucial goods and inputs demands cooperation across the G-20
countries and the global South.

There are also normative arguments for the United States to prioritize the G-20. By using
the forum wisely, Washington can press for joint technology norms and standards to ensure
an open and secure digital infrastructure and stronger affinities between the United States
and younger democracies such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa. The pandemic
upended Trump’s first presidency, demonstrating that cooperation is essential to tackling
pandemics, climate-induced migration, and other global threats. Trump’s legacy will depend
on his success in preventing another global catastrophe from putting a black mark on his
second term.

Trump’s vituperative persona, his enmity toward multilateralism, and his extreme policy
agenda could easily sink the United States’ prospects for meaningful leadership of the G-20.
But letting the opportunity pass would be a grave mistake. The global South’s growing
ambitions make it imperative that the United States embrace new avenues of collaborative
leadership. Even Trump should recognize this and take advantage of the unique opening
the G-20 presidency provides to mend distrust of the United States and find a way to
appeal to countries it cannot afford to lose.

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LESLIE VINJAMURI is Director of the U.S. and the Americas Program at Chatham House and
Professor of International Relations at SOAS University of London.

MAX YOELI is a Consulting Fellow in the U.S. and the Americas Program at Chatham House.

MORE BY LESLIE VINJAMURI

MORE BY MAX YOELI

United States Diplomacy Economics Economic Development International Institutions

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U.S. Foreign Policy Trump Administration Global South

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